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MHLivingNews and MHProNews have tracked several prefabricated, 3D Printing, and other housing innovations over the years. Unicorn Revolution Precrafted Properties are among them.

Industry professionals, informed public officials, advocates, and investors know that factory-home-building makes good sense on numerous levels. But tracking and reporting on the results of some of these operations ought to inspire those in the U.S. and Canada to realize just how much potential there actually is in the various kinds of prefabricated construction.

So while our focus tends to be the routine drama associated with manufactured homes, it is good to look to modular, tiny, container, and other emerging forms of factory-built housing. Properly understood, these ought to compliment each other, just as entry or mid-level cars don’t harm luxury brands and models.

Or there are others found in our 2018 year end summary report, found in the related resources, below the byline and notices.

Having set the table, let’s take a good look at what Revolution Precrafted provided in their news release to MHProNews today, on some of their latest projects. Keep in mind that while they started in Asia, they’ve got projects in various countries around the world.

These “revolutionary” professionals are thinking big. They find a way. Disruptive Revolution Precrafted Properties have their eyes on the U.S. market too. Canadians? Can you be far behind?

For news as well as inspiration, let’s turn to what they provided in their latest release. These include project updates, ‘meet the designers’ profiles, and more. After their release, we’ll wrap up with some closing thoughts.

Revolution Flavorscapes unveil Model Homes

Revolution Precrafted, a global leader in branded prefab structures, and Central Country Estate Inc. (CCEI) are set to unveil the model units for its $750 million Revolution Flavorscapes. Construction of the model units for ‘Cocoon’ and ‘Alcove” homes have started in December. Cocoon is expected to be completed at the end of January while the Alcove unit will be completed by mid-February. The fully staged units will be available for viewing by March 2019.

Affordable homes designed by global boxing icon Manny Pacquiao are now available at the Revolution Flavorscapes project in Lakeshore Estate, Mexico, Pampanga. Around 200 units are now available for sale at the project for P1.9 million.

Lakeshore is offering 60 lots measuring 200 square meters. Lot owners can build their preferred home designs. They can also opt to build curated homes under the Revolution Precrafted design portfolio.

The Concept of the Tranche House is innovative modularity, offering ultimate flexibility in terms of customizing your home to satisfy your current space and financial requirements. The Tranche House is a complete unit that can form part of a larger configuration if so desired, depending on owner’s preferences. Each unit represents a liveable module for a small family.

It’s a series of 2-bedroom structures with an open living, dining, and kitchen layout. Not like your typical row-house design, this space-saving structure already has a single-car garage that can be converted into a lanai. The structure is made of insulated metal panels to keep the house insulated from heat. With the use of insulated metal panels, the heat stops at the exterior surface, thus keeping the inside of the house cool.

Factory-built housing, not just manufactured homes, are underperforming in the U.S. and Canada. There are good reasons to ponder what Revolution Prefabricated and others are doing. While it may seem like apples and oranges, there are nevertheless numerous useful lessons.

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Oppression enslaves both the oppressor and those who are controlled. The comfortable life of the oppressor may look appealing. But when the full scope of economic realities are properly understood, each loses, though one side obviously lost more.

Manufactured housing professionals should embrace Martin Luther King Jr. Day on numerous levels. Rev. King accomplished amazing things, but he was not a perfect man. With Dr. King, as with other mere mortals, one must discern and separate the wholesome wheat from the inedible chaff.

Manipulating economic, political, media, housing, and any other aspects of American life costs this nation trillions annually in lost economic output. Learn more at this link here and at the linked text/image box, below.

The text of Dr. King’s speech – delivered 28 August 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C. – per American Rhetoric, is as follows the video below. Note that the copyrighted version of the speech, from the federal archives, is found as a download, linked here.

For manufactured home, and other affordable housing professionals, the American Dream includes having the security and other benefits of homeownership.

For newcomers to the website not familiar with modern manufactured homes, learn more by clicking the image above or the link here.

This abbreviated version of the famous speech by King is shown in the video below, which has had over 9.4 million views. The longer version, after the text of the speech, has over 3.3 million views.

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the “unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.”

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.

We cannot turn back.

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. **We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: “For Whites Only.”** We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until “justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”1

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest — quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of “interposition” and “nullification” — one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; “and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.”2

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day — this will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim’s pride, From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that:

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

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Those three words sum up much of what “the establishment” of both major political parties have actively or passively accepted and/or promoted for decades. Those three words also help explain how Washington, D.C. has become more remote from the people it is supposed to serve. Those three words help explain why wages have been stagnant for so many years.

That’s simplicity.

Those words are not considered often enough by millennials, or any other group, in the U.S. today. But they should be pondered as part of the solution in understanding why the world’s wealthiest nation doesn’t even rank in the top 40 countries on earth in the rate of home ownership.

These irksome realities are educational opportunities in disguise. So too are specific items about the millennial generation, that over the next 3 to 4 decades will ‘inherit’ an estimated $30 trillion dollars. Accenture says that $30 trillion will be the largest transfer of wealth, ever.

Morning Brew and the Visual Capitalist provided the data for the following infographic. Note the relatively low amount being invested in housing?

“Record low numbers of millennials think buying a home is a good investment—here’s why. America’s attitude towards home-ownership is changing. Only 48 percent of millennials (age 21-36) believe that buying a home is a good investment, according to the latest ValueInsured Modern Homebuyer Survey,” per CNBC on Aug 23, 2018.

CNBC provided the following infographic.

With that vexing tee up, consider the VC/Morning Brew infographic on the investment habit trends of millennials.

These factoids represent monumental opportunities in disguise. What are you doing to tap it in your market(s)?

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As with many federal laws, regulations must be crafted. Comments on proposed rules must be received. Only then that the rules are made, and finally rolled out. It is at the end of the that process that business people and investors can begin making that law ready to go to work.

Senator Scott could be a contender for the GOP nomination in the 2024 cycle, so this plan and he will be of interest on several levels.

In a release to MHProNews, Globe St. pointed to a timely update on this topic. It came in the form of a Q&A with Real Estate Roundtable President and CEO Jeffrey DeBoer and Roundtable Senior Vice President and Counsel Ryan McCormick.

They have given a detailed analysis of the proposed rules for Enterprise Zones, and their implications for the real estate and housing in their Q&A.

On October 19, Treasury and the IRS released highly anticipated regulatory guidance related to the Opportunity Zone program. GlobeSt.com asked Real Estate Roundtable President and CEO Jeffrey DeBoer and Roundtable Senior Vice President and Counsel Ryan McCormick to explain the proposed rules and their implications for the real estate industry.

What is your main takeaway from the new Treasury regulations on Opportunity Zones?

DeBoer: The Treasury guidance is a clear indication the Administration is fully committed to an Opportunity Zone program that spurs broad-based job creation and creates new economic opportunity for businesses, entrepreneurs, and residents in low-income communities. The regulations help to implement the objectives of the lawmakers who designed the program, such as Senator Tim Scott (R-SC). With the regulatory regime now taking shape, we foresee Opportunity Fund investors actively partnering with local leaders and entrepreneurs on projects that both drive economic activity and respond to the needs of communities.

What do the proposed regulations mean for real estate?

DeBoer: For real estate, the proposed regulations are unquestionably positive. They clarify key technical questions and open issues, and they should allow investments in funds and in underlying projects to go forward. While some important questions remain, we continue to believe that the Opportunity Zone program will be a powerful catalyst for transformational real estate investment in these designated low-income areas.

Keep in mind that millions of housing units are needed, many of them in or near urban areas. Manufactured housing has a practical advantage of enhanced preemption, so long as that provision of the Manufactured Housing Improvement Act of 2000 (MHIA) is implemented.

While modular or prefabs are what are commonly considered for high-rise building, as MHProNews has reminded readers, there are also opportunities for high-rise construction that could use HUD Code homes. ICYMI, or need a refresher, see that report at the link below.

“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.”

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, GoodReads.

“Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.”

– Warren Buffett, BrainyQuotes.

“Most of us are imprisoned by something. We’re living in darkness until something flips on the switch.”

– Wynonna Judd, GoodReads.

“Like a snake sheds its skin, we are capable of getting rid of assembled habits, creating space to call matters into question…We can retreat, then, from the imprisonment of a deadly routine, acquire an identity and develop our personality.”

– Erik Pevernagie, “Man Without Qualities.”

The American economy is becoming the envy of the world, says a new report in NewsMax.

While U.S. economic growth is surging, other national economies are reportedly slipping and faltering.

Coincidence? Hardly.

Even left-of-center sources or Democratic supporting political supporters are starting to acknowledge that Trump Administration policies, including regulatory rollbacks, and the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, are fueling economic expansion.

Jobs that former President Barack Obama said where never coming back to the U.S. – like mining and manufacturing – are roaring back under the Trump Administration’s leadership.

Billionaires Warren Buffett, Chase’s Jaime Dimon Praise U.S. Economy

For those who don’t know, Warren Buffett has been a Trump critic long before his successful run for the Oval Office.

So, it is worth noting that Warren Buffett, who supported Barack Obama and later Secretary Hillary Clinton, recently praised the U.S. economic recovery that has been occurring as a result of President of the United States (POTUS) Donald J. Trump’s leadership.

Buffett says you should buy stocks, or make investments, when the long-term outlook in a field or company is good. Think about that as you ponder Berkshire Hathaway’s moves in the manufactured housing industry space in the last 15 years.

This Buffett quote is worth pondering in the light of MHI and related controversies.

The DOJ’s Inspector General’s Report

On 6.14.2018, the Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of the Inspector General (IG) Office released an eighteen month report that points to issues with the 2016 election that point to a “Deep State,” and to issues that aren’t based in Russia, but rather are found right here in the U.S.A.

Before diving into elements of the DOJ IG report, let’s set the table with an understanding of the origin of the concept of the Deep State.

What is the “Deep State?”

Wikipedia says that “The term “deep state” was defined in 2014 by Mike Lofgren, a former Republican U.S. congressional aide, as “a hybrid association of elements of government and parts of top-level finance and industry that is effectively able to govern the United States without reference to the consent of the governed as expressed through the formal political process.”

According to whistleblower Edward Snowden, “the deep state is not just the intelligence agencies, it is really a way of referring to the career bureaucracy of government. These are officials who sit in powerful positions, who don’t leave when presidents do, who watch presidents come and go…they influence policy, they influence presidents.”

While some, like the New York Times, dismiss the notion of the Deep State, it is becoming widely discussed across the left-right media divide. The discussion on the so-called deep state is so intense, it’s spawned an upcoming cable TV series on Epix.

Part of the issue of “Deep State” bureaucrats, who are shown as flaunting rules that prohibit them from playing favorites, leaking information to the press, having their own agenda vs. that of an elected administration, and the like.

There are those in MHVille who point to Pam Danner, the prior administrator of the Office if Manufactured Housing Programs at HUD, as an example of the Deep State at work in ways that harmed the manufactured housing industry. Danner did so, they say, until she was finally removed.

While he focused on the military-industrial complex, President Dwight D. Eisenhower raised a similar theme to the Deep State over half-a-century ago. In his 1961 farewell address, POTUS Ike said “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

The maxim of the proverbial “power behind the throne” makes it clear that various understandings of the Deep State are ancient, not new.

The IG’s Report Points to Deep State Woes

The DOJ’s IG report is a both a political and legal document. It claims that there is no evidence of undue influence or favoritism, before or since the 2016 election, in the FBI or DOJ.

Nevertheless, sources that have read the over 500 page report say it is replete with examples of the opposite.

Attorney, constitutional author, and talk radio firebrand Mark Levin – who at one point was a “never Trump” believer – gives a quick litany of examples. Levin lays out the facts of how the IG report reveals wildly problematic legal issues, with a strongly and illicit anti-Trump bias.

Tucker Carlson, who has an independent, libertarian bent, had several features last night that likewise raised issues with the IG report.

The president’s legal-team point man, former New York Mayor Ruddy Giuliani, said the IG report is proof that the entire special counsel handling has been tainted from the beginning. He claims it is leading away from clear evidence of illegalities allegedly committed by Secretary Clinton and her supporters.

Meanwhile, with no evidence yet of any direct or illegal ties to Russia by the Trump campaign, there were “spies” (informants) used, electronic, and other surveillance methods used against now President Trump’s team.

The deep state could be viewed through the “Drain the Swamp” lens that helped elect Donald Trump.

When senior FBI agents vowed to keep Mr. Trump from winning, or would cause him to be wrongfully impeached once he won, it is a constitutionally frightening development.

Elections are a peaceful way of selecting representatives of the people in a Republic. Elections create a stake for voters. But if elections can be rigged by high-level public officials, attempting to work behind the scenes, that’s a problem that will not end well.

But it would be naïve to think that high-level “rigging of the system” was new.

We noted the concern of President Eisenhower. But other examples exist of the power of the unelected bureaucratic federal officials – including but not limited to, the FBI – during the Vietnam conflict, and during the civil rights movement.

This is why vigilance is necessary. That’s a basic price of freedom.

Every day, foreign powers seek to influence each other’s politics. That’s nothing new. The U.S. has done it, China and Russia do it, as do other nations too. So the hype – mostly from the left – over “Russia, Russia, Russia” shouldn’t be overlooked, but it must be taken in context.

For Americans to remain free, “We, the People” must be properly informed. President Trump and Bernie Sanders alike were debatably correct when each said that the “system is rigged.”

Day by day, it seems clear that the 45th Chief Executive of the United States means to keep his campaign promises.

Everyone has character foibles and flaws.

James Watt was known for insightful quotes.

But Mr. Trump is demonstrably taking the nation in a better economic direction. The steps he’s taken have been good for business in general, and good for manufactured housing.

Editorially, MHProNews has and continues to support President Trump based upon principles like tax cuts that have worked for past Democratic and Republican presidents alike.

As the midterms are approaching, there is a fight within the Democratic party between moderate and more socialistic Democrats. So say members of the Democratic party.

Factoid. If you look at the home page of MHProNews on Sunday Morning, it will look like what you see on this tablet screen shot, above.

“Meshuggeneh”

We were checking out at Walmart last night after dinner. The woman who was ringing up our order was lightly conversing with my husband and family. She was commenting on something the previous lady in line had said before leaving with her new goodies. The lady at the register said to us, “What would my rabbi think about that?” Without missing a beat, Tony said, “He’d likely think it would beMeshuggeneh.”

The woman looked with surprised delight, but apparently made the quick judgement that we were not Jewish. “Yes, you’re right. But how do you know what that means?” “Because we have a number of Jewish friends and colleagues,” Tony replied, and in moments he and our son Tamas were both singing a few lines from Fiddler on the Roof to that woman’s amazement and joy.

The word “Meshuggah” is defined by the Free Dictionary like this: “Adj. 1. meshugga – senseless; crazy. meshuga, meshugge, meshuggeneh, meshuggener. Yiddish – a dialect of High German including some Hebrew and other words; spoken in Europe as a vernacular by many Jews; written in the Hebrew script.” It’s use was perfectly suited for the occasion, and the exchanged clearly lifted the spirits of that woman — who doesn’t know us, and we did not know her save for those few minutes at a register.

There are times when the right words – including lyrical words – can bring joy, inspiration, comfort, or insight to others. Words can harm, and words can heal.

As trade publishers, it is never our intent to harm another, quite the opposite is true.

Journalism and trade journalism are relatives, but they are not precisely the same thing.

There is journalism for a cause, so-called agenda journalism. Many in media try their hands at that, and to a degree, in as much as we advocate for this or that as a means of advancing manufactured housing in an editorial way, it would be fair to say that MHProNews and MHLivingNews have an agenda too. Every genuine trade media is a kind of de facto advocate for their respective cause or industry.

Ours agenda is out in the open. We want to see manufactured housing advance. Everything else, as my spouse might say, are details and commentary. During an affordable housing crisis, when the industry has done as much as 5 to 6 times higher levels of new manufactured home sales in the past, why isn’t the industry doing much better today?

For newcomers to the website not familiar with modern manufactured homes, learn more by clicking the image above or the link here.

Day by day, article by article, we strive to provide insights that address those kinds of opportunities and concerns.

Life can take surprising turns.

Neither Tony nor I imagined at the start of our studies and early careers that the course on our lives would bring us into manufactured housing.

My training was in medicine, and I’d been certified here in the U.S., and in a European nation, and my motherland too. Tony began his years of college studies in history, with a journalism scholarship, and a minor in business. As a medical scientist, I strive to look at things clinically. Tony uses decades of hands-on industry involvement in retail, communities, with lenders and producers, all aided by the lens of his education and other life experiences.

We naturally influence each other, as we aim to inform (and be informed by) you and the thousands of industry professionals, investors, and researchers who will check in today to read this among the total of 6.7 pages they will read on average before they go.

A child with serious medical conditions will altar your life’s paths. But what a joy it is to embrace life, including the challenges that life will always bring. As thousands in MHVille know, Tamas travels with us to trade shows and other industry events.

Depending on the time of year, and what’s going on in the industry, page views per reader can go as high as 9 per visit.

But even our most recent third-party data demonstrates that our readers are twice as engaged as the average mainstream media news site (by comparison, mainstream news gets about 3.3 page views per reader). Wow, we have double the engagement – or more – than mainstream news readers get. Our sincere thank you to all who make that possible.

There are a handful of bigger websites than ours in what Tony likes to fondly call MHVille or HUDVille. But no one even comes close in MH trade media websites, or apparently in published MH media too. These are facts. No one else in MH media even bothers to share their trade site or readership data. NOTE: It’s not how many of what you print, it is what gets read that counts.

That’s one of several ways that third-party data comes in handy.

Why are we successful, and have a MH Professional audience as wide and deep as we do?

Fair questions.

First, we provide professional services to the industry, so we aren’t sitting in some ivory tower. We know factory-crafted homes from the ground up. Tony began award-winning, record-setting work in MH retail in the 1980s. He later shifted to working with lenders on remarketing, and then with land-lease MH Communities (MHC) and producers. In the industry’s trade media, it’s unlikely that anyone in MH history has interviewed more people than we have: actual manufactured home owners, numerous industry professionals, experts, and others who touch or connect with manufactured and modular home building.

Next, we curate topics that ought to have meaning for you, industry professionals, investors, policy advocates, and other kinds of researchers. Thus, it should be no surprise when a number of articles here get over ten thousand hits or more in their first month online on MHProNews. Millions of page-views in a year can yield the kind of statistics that generated the following factoid.

The industry needs inspiration as well as fair warnings, and de facto morality tales. We are guided day-by-day with input from industry readers from across the range of businesses of all sizes. The Daily Business News gathers input from a variety of sources, including:

insights and interactions with members and staffs of trade associations,

the federal government,

state or local officials,

mainstream media,

experts in various fields, and much more.

Yes, we have typos, as detractors like to note, but we also bring the industry’s most read, most discussed, and hardest-hitting articles. Tony says, “chaff and wheat.” Keep the good grain, please pardon any keystroke or autocorrection-caused glitch. Please pardon as needed, and keep in mind that for me, English is my third language. Keep in mind too that we are doing more articles than all others combined between doing other services for various members of the industry.

We’re not aiming for the politically correct. We call it as we see it, but not for the sake of mere clickbait.

We are willing to expose what is necessary – the underlying factors that are holding our great industry back from achieving its potential for solving the massive, and growing affordable housing crisis.

We are willing to name-names, and point fingers, when there is evidence to make a claim.

We are evidence- and principle-based writers, with analysis informed by decades of hands-on experience in manufactured housing.

We’re mindful that every article gets read by thousands, many of whom will make decisions about manufactured housing related issues.

When third-party researchers, the federal government, others in mainstream media read, cite or quote our work, that all says something. When certain voices in MHVille attack us (usually, quietly), that says something too. When the naysayers won’t debate publicly, that definitely tells you something’s amiss. If they thought the facts were on their side, why not discuss them publicly?

Doing anything less than giving you actionable insights based upon reality – when during this U.S. affordable housing crisis our potential as an industry could be 5 to 10 times more business – could debatably be called Meshuggeneh.

If you want to sign up for our industry leading headline news, delivered twice weekly, you can sign up in seconds at this link here or after the end of this article.

This 10-minute video will show you some technologies that you will be familiar with, such as 3D Printing.

But it will also introduce you to technologies that you may not be familiar with at all. This new TechZone video was posted earlier in May 2018, and it already boasts over a million views.

From:

patio and road paving systems,

to tear down tech,

3D printing,

to wall building drones,

robots that build walls faster than humans,

and more

this is a video that forward thinkers in the manufactured and modular housing industry will want to carefully digest.

We have a follow up Daily Business News report pending on a related process that is poised to launch later this year, or early in 2019. It is a must for factory builders. Stay tuned. ## (News, analysis, and expert commentary.)

(Third party images, and cites are provided under fair use guidelines.)

“Home Group, one of the UK’s largest providers of homes for sale and affordable rent, has reported that 52% of individuals would be unlikely to live in a modular home, yet almost 90% failed to identify a modern modular product,” the operation said in a statement in their news blog.

The British company uses the King’s – err, now the Queen’s – English, so some of the spelling is a bit different there than on this side of the Atlantic.

“Almost 90% of respondents failed to recognise that this home, by ilke Homes, was modular. Yet over 70% identified shipping container homes as modular homes.”

“The research, carried out on behalf of Home Group by YouGov, found that more than half of those surveyed would not choose modular, and 41% believe that modular homes are less durable than conventionally built homes,” Home Group’s statement said.

As if to make their point about most don’t understand the product, another U.K. based publication showed a photo of a single section American HUD Code manufactured home, instead of a British modular home, as in the photo at the top of this post. The errant Showhouse photo, reporting on this exact same YouGove survey, is below.

The YouGov research found that, “using a selection of images from which respondents could identify modular homes, many identified the two container home images as modular (75% and 78% respectively), whereas only 11% identified today’s product as a modular home.”

Brian Ham, executive director of development, for the Home Group said, “If we are to respond to the ongoing housing crisis we need to find new and innovative ways of tackling the issue, and modular homes, as well as wider modern methods of construction, including volumetric products, will allow us to deliver homes more efficiently.”

The YouGov survey was based upon a sampling of over 2000 adults in England, using images online.

Councillor Malcolm Brain, a Cabinet Member for Housing, Gateshead Council said: “We welcome this project to build around 40 new homes, many of which are being built using modern methods of construction, for affordable rent in Gateshead – especially at a time when affordable housing is a big issue. Modular housing has huge potential to speed up the delivery of new homes and we look forward to showcasing the best designs here in Gateshead.”

Per their website, Home Group describes itself this way. “We are a social enterprise and a charity with a turnover of over £350m and one of the UK’s largest providers of high quality housing and integrated housing, health and social care.”

What would a similar survey of adults reveal about the public’s understanding of HUD Code manufactured homes, or modular homes reveal?

Just over 50 years have elapsed since then President Lyndon B Johnson announced the formation of the Kerner Commission. It was formed in response to race riots protesting poor housing, insufficient jobs, educational, and other issues in Detroit and other cities across the country. In the vintage video below, the first few minutes are a list of names on the commission, followed by the issues – including housing – that sparked riots, along with other related issues.

Democratic President Johnson called for

prayer and peace,

threatened rioters with severe penalties,

while promising preparations and touting efforts already underway.

Then and now – housing, jobs, dignity and opportunities were important issues.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) regulated manufactured housing program could provide many of the necessary ingredients for genuine progress.

In the wake of the comments that came into HUD in response to their ‘top down’ review of the manufactured housing program, the Kerner Commission, then and now, considerations are timely.

Why? As noted, because housing, jobs, dignity and opportunities were important issues then – and now.

Tye explained that public housing – an entitlement – often yields addiction. Ownership vs. renting or living in “projects” leads to integrity, a view he likens to those of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Isn’t this part of the antidote to the t-word issue?

Lessons of Decades of Failure

As the Daily Business News noted in the recent comments to HUD linked below from L. A. “Tony” Kovach, after over $22 trillion in federal spending on ‘poverty programs,’ the challenge of poverty levels remains the same.

As President Johnson then, or President Donald J. Trump now, alike noted — faith, family and the inspiration of our flag are also elements that must not be overlooked.

But after 5 decades of social, economic, and political experiments, pragmatists should now admit that those policies have failed. Trillions in federal, state, and local spending failed to solve what faith-infused morality, free markets, and free people alone can fix what is holding tens of millions of Americans in rentals, trapped in poverty.

The Trump Administration and HUD Secretary Carson and his team can fix much, not all, of this using private capital by fully grasping what manufactured homes are truly like today.

HUD technocrats must immerse themselves and learn the industry’s complex dynamics, so that they can unleash the multi-trillion dollar housing component of the economy.

Beyond follow up and engagement with HUD on the comments, manufactured housing professionals and home owners would be wise to take at least two more steps.

1) Manufactured home professionals would be well advised to contact their legislators now, and ask them to prompt HUD on the broad and liberal use of HUD Code manufactured homes. You could link this report, others or send the PDFs of comments submitted to HUD, found linked below. Send them with your own comments encouraging proper reforms of the manufactured housing program.

2) Legal Action. As two of the comment letters linked below indicate, allegedly monopolistic practices are part of the problem. The comfortable relationship between the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) – via a reported intermediary – with HUD’s Pam Danner can’t be overlooked. What was missing from MHI’s 5 point comments was precisely that issue – ‘who will be next in line to run the manufactured housing program leadership?’

After all of the drama with Pam Danner, JD and her leadership of the manufactured housing program office at HUD, and that was harming the industry, was nothing learned about the importance of having a reasonable person at the helm of the program?

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(Third party images, and cites are provided under fair use guidelines.)

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Soheyla is a managing member of LifeStyle Factory Homes, LLC, the parent company to MHProNews, and MHLivingNews.com.